


Polished

by thejilyship



Series: Happy Accidents [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Female James Potter, Hogwarts, Idiots in Love, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Romance, crashing detention, fem!Jily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28654254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejilyship/pseuds/thejilyship
Summary: Lily gets detention. She is supposed to spend the evening polishing trophies.She does not polish any trophies.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Happy Accidents [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090721
Comments: 12
Kudos: 46
Collections: Fem! Jily





	Polished

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm obsessed with fem!jily, okay? And when I was talking to womeninthesequel and theroomofreq, I got this idea for a part three to this series and I ran with it.  
> please love my girls.

Jamie Potter had never had to work hard to get into trouble.

Trouble was something that seemed attracted to Jamie, like a moth to flame, a fish to water, Icarus to the sun.

Her mother lovely referred to her as a menace, her professors deemed her a distraction on a good day, a terror on a bad. She had racked up enough detention for her entire house’s year, and had yet to be deterred by the slip of pink parchment or the verbal reprimand that normally accompanied it.

Trouble followed her nearly as closely as her shadow did.

She would be walking along the corridors, intent on getting to the library one minute, and then become distracted by some wanna-be-death-eaters harassing some younger years. She wasn’t going to do nothing, but apparently hexing them all so that their tongues were made of stone was not the _right_ thing to do.

It had shut them up and wore off after a couple of hours, so Jamie had thought it justified, but Professor Kettleburn hadn’t seen it that way.

Of course, she wasn’t always dolling out clever revenge, most of the time it was just dumb fun that got her in hot water. Dumb fun and bad luck. Mistiming how long it would take to run three flights of stairs, misjudging how upset a professor would be about a completely _harmless_ prank, not paying enough attention to the map and running into an annoyed prefect or simply forgetting how to keep her mouth shut.

She’d scrubbed loos, foraged in the Forbidden Forest, sorted screeching plants, restocked the section of the library where all the books tried to bite you, polished more suits of armor than she could count and yet, every other week, she found herself with yet another detention, yet another punishment to withstand.

No, Jamie Potter had never gone looking for trouble. Trouble usually found her well enough on its own.

So, when she decided that today, she needed to actively pursue a detention, she was growing increasingly frustrated that she was not able to obtain one of those pink slips that littered the bottom of her trunk and the floor under her bed.

And she really _needed_ to get a detention today.

“Jamie,” Sirius put a hand on her shoulder and raised his brow. They were sitting in the back of the room of Binn’s class and Jamie had just failed to get detention when she interrupted by showing up ten minutes late and announcing that it was because she had been trying to finish up the homework. Binn’s hadn’t seem to notice, but she had caught Lily’s attention. “Do we need to do some breathing exercises? Why are you vibrating?”

Jamie narrowed her eyes and then looked down at her bouncing legs. She did her best to halt the nervous tick, but then her hand was buried in her hair. “Evans got detention.” She said quietly, and she thought that this was an entire explanation, but Sirius just looked at her like he wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. Jamie sighed and slumped even further against her chair. “She shouldn’t have gotten detention.”

Sirius removed his hand from her shoulder and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, still waiting for more of an explanation.

Lily was a few rows ahead of Jamie and Sirius, so it was unlikely that she would overhear them, but Jamie was still nervous about it. She didn’t want Lily to know that she was trying to get detention, but all of her more subtle attempts had fallen flat so far.

“Was it _your_ fault?” Sirius asked.

“No.” Jamie shook her head. “No, it wasn’t my fault, she just shouldn’t have gotten detention.”

Sirius cleared his throat and leaned closer to Jamie. “Sweetheart,” And he used that voice he used when he wanted her to know that she was being ridiculous and acting the besotted fool. Jamie rolled her eyes and pushed her glasses up her nose.

“I swear to Agripa-“

“Evans can survive detention without you.”

“I never said that-“

“And besides, if you really want detention, just ask Remus.”

“What?” Jamie cocked her head to the side and looked at the table next to them, where Peter was falling asleep and Remus was hard at work taking notes.

“Ask Remus to give you detention.” Sirius was smirking at her now, always ready to enjoy a moment where he appeared the smarter of the two. It had been happening a lot more recently. But if Jamie’s brain had been a little muddled lately, it was because of Lily, and Jamie couldn’t be upset about that. Sirius could be the smart one until Jamie remembered how to focus on non-Lily related subjects for more than ten minutes at a time.

“Right-o.” Jamie pushed herself up and then propped her elbow up on her desk and picked up her quill. “Remus has never given me detention before. I forgot that he could do that.”

As if sensing that he was being talked about, Remus turned toward them. Jamie gave him a little wave and he gave her a questioning look, but then went back to his notes.

“I’m sure that he’d love to.” Sirius snorted. “You’re a right pain. I’d give you detention if I could.”

“Thanks, doll,” Jamie grinned at him. “You’re a right pain too.”

Sirius shook his head and then went back to his own notes.

oOo

“I’m not going to give you detention, Jamie.” Remus looked surprised that she would even ask.

“Why not?” Jamie looped her arm through Remus’s and leaned against his shoulder. “You’d be doing me quite the favor.”

Remus looked over at her and gave her a look. A look that meant that he wasn’t going to fall for it. “Jamie, I can’t just write people detention-“

“I’m not just people.”

“I have to record all the detentions I give, I need to have a reason for it.”

Jamie shrugged. “I can break a rule if you want, or you can just say that I did, but it’s very important that I get detention today.”

“For what possible-“

“Evans,” Sirius interrupted, reaching out and messing up her hair.

“Shhh!” Jamie looked around the corridor, but Evans wasn’t around at the moment. She must have been off to the library with Mary. “Sirius, I don’t want her to find out!”

Remus looked at Jamie, and then at Sirius, who went on. “Evans got detention today, Jamie doesn’t think that she can manage it on her own. Thinks herself quite the romantic-“

“I never said that I didn’t think that she could handle it.” Jamie tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling. “She just shouldn’t have gotten detention, it wasn’t fair and so I want to be there with her tonight.”

“She’s Head Girl.” Remus narrowed his brow. “Who gave her detention?”

“Professor Hawley.” Jamie muttered his name and ran her hand through her hair. “He saw her telling off a group of second year Ravenclaws for picking on a muggle born. He told her that she wasn’t allowed to use her position of authority to indoctrinate the younger students to her way of thinking.”

The boys were quiet as this information sank in.

“I told you that she shouldn’t have gotten detention!” Jamie shouted, and then looked around for Lily again.

“She needs to tell Dumbledore.” Remus said at the same time that Sirius said, “I just thought of about a dozen way s we can get detention today.”

Jamie nodded, “Yes, yes, but she said that she didn’t want to tell Dumbledore and that I wasn’t allowed to do anything about Hawley. Apparently this isn’t the first time that he’s made his opinion on her being Head Girl known.” She looked back at Remus. “So if you could _please-“_

“If she didn’t want you to retaliate, she’s not going to want you to get detention either.” Remus interrupted. “Why don’t you just go in with the cloak?”

Sirius swore under his breath, because Remus had just trumped his plan.

Jamie also wasn’t thrilled to be having the obvious pointed out to her.

“Right.” She sighed, “I have an invisibility cloak.”

“Yeah,” Remus smirked at her. “You do.”

oOo

Jamie had stayed up in the dormitory until the map showed that Lily was alone.

She was in the trophy room, which probably meant that Filch had her polishing shiny, metal, ego boosters by hand.

But now that Lily _was_ alone, under her cloak, Jamie made her way to the trophy room.

It wasn’t that long of a walk, and when she saw the door in front of her, Jamie hesitated for the first time all day.

She had run around the castle trying to come up with a plan to get here, to get to be with Lily while she was in detention, and now that she was here, now that she was about to walk through the door, she finally had a moment to stop and think.

She didn’t always do that when Lily was involved.

For Merlin’s sake, _one_ flirty comment from Lily and she’d stripped and joined her in the shower. She blushed now just thinking about how bold she had been.

She reached up and touched her lips, burning at the thoughts that raced through her mind.

She’d also felt relief, to _finally_ know that the two of them were on the same page. To _finally_ know that Lily thought of Jamie in the same way that Jamie thought of her.

She spent almost every night wrapped up in Lily Evans. They whispered back and forth to one another as long as they could keep themselves awake, they snogged until Jamie couldn’t pick apart what was reality and what was a dream. 

Jamie had seen Lily naked. But she wasn’t sure if she would want Jamie to barge in on her detention just now.

Which was ridiculous.

Jamie knew that it was ridiculous, but it was also true. Remus had reminded her that Lily had asked her not to do anything about her detention, and Lily had seemed upset when they had talked about it briefly this morning. Not the kind of upset that Jamie was used to either. So, she’d agreed not to do anything.

It had gone against everything in Jamie to comply with her request, but she had.

And she knew that if she turned around now, went back to the dorm, and got started on her Potions essay, Lily would come and find her when her detention was over. She would get back to the dorm, take a shower, pull on her pajamas, and then join Jamie in her bed.

She knew that with absolute certainty.

If she pushed open this door right now, a fight might lie behind it, she might break something that she believed was still fragile. Because crashing her detention wasn’t really doing nothing.

However, it was the least that she could do. The _very_ least that she could do. She wouldn’t be able to stand doing nothing, so this was the only other option that she could think of.

She hated doubting herself, and she had been doing it so much lately. She liked Lily, and she knew that Lily liked her back, so why was it so hard to make decisions like this? Why did she always think that she was going to make the wrong choice? When was she going to start to trust herself where Lily was involved?

She looked behind her to make sure that no one was there, pulled of the cloak, and pushed the door open in one motion so that there wasn’t another opportunity for her to overthink.

Lily looked up from where she was seated on the floor, a bottle of polish and a rag beside her. She did not appear to be polishing anything and when she saw Jamie, she tilted her head to the side and smiled, her fingers still dancing through the ends of her hair. 

“Took you long enough.”

Internally, Jamie felt herself trip a bit over the fact that Lily had expected her to show up. That she had been waiting for her to show up. She had been worried over nothing.

Externally, she ran a hand through her hair, offered a crooked grin and said, “Had to wait until you were alone, didn’t I?”

“I suppose.”

“Did he take your wand?”

“Yep.” Lily held out her hands, “He said some manual labor would do me some good.”

“You look very hard at work, maybe I should come back later?” Jamie pushed her glasses up her nose and put a hand back on the doorknob.

“Get over here,” Lily waved her over and Jamie bit down on her cheek.

She folded up her cloak over her arm and started toward Lily. She sat down next to her cross-legged, fully facing Lily, who had her legs kicked out in front of her as she leaned against the wall. “So,” She set the cloak down next to her and then pushed her hand against Lily’s knee. Sometimes it still didn’t feel like she was allowed to touch her if they weren’t safely tucked away from the rest of the world in one of their fourposter beds, so she withdrew her hand quickly. “You were waiting for me?”

Lily let her head loll to the side and looked at Jamie through her lashes. “I saw you trying to get detention all morning, Jamie.”

Jamie felt herself flush. She knew that she hadn’t been very sneaky, and she knew that Lily was smart. She’d also caught Lily looking at her quite a bit these last few weeks, so it shouldn’t surprise her in the slightest that Lily had noticed her trying to get in enough trouble to warrant a detention, but not too much trouble that she drew unnecessary attention to herself.

She had been trying to be subtle, but being subtle had never really been in her nature.

“Are you very upset with me?” Jamie looked down at the space between their knees, such a small amount of space.

“Why would I be upset with you? Because you failed to get detention?” Lily snorted, assuring Jamie that she wasn’t upset and spurring her to scoot forward so that their knees were pressed against one another. She felt better at the contact, even if there was still two pairs of stockings and an inch or two of Lily’s skirt between them.

“This has never happened before.” Jamie sighed, running her hand through her hair. “I’ve never tried to get detention, but I thought it would be easy.”

Lily shook her head, looking as though she was attempting to restrain her smile.

“My mates reminded me that I didn’t need to get detention myself in order to crash yours though.”

“Well, that was mighty kind of them.”

“They have their moments.” Jamie nodded, folding her hands together and pushing them into her lap. “I mean, I suppose I keep them around for a reason.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jamie shrugged.

“We can talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“I really appreciate that you didn’t retaliate this morning.” Lily reached out and squeezed Jamie’s hands, which were still entangled together. “I wished you weren’t there in the moment because when things like that happen, I feel embarrassed about it, even though I have nothing to be embarrassed about. And I know staying quiet isn’t your usual style, but I really appreciate that you didn’t escalate the situation.”

Jamie nodded, pulling her hands apart so she could hold onto Lily. “I don’t want to make things more difficult for you.”

“You don’t, and you didn’t. Honestly, I don’t think you could. You make everything much easier.”

Jamie smiled, the apples of her cheeks hurting. “You’re not mad that I tried to get detention?”

“No.” Lily laughed. “I’d probably been a bit bummed if you hadn’t tried.”

“I asked Remus to give me detention.” Jamie offered, encouraged when she laughed again. “He reminded me that I own the invisibility cloak. I like to think that I would have eventually remembered on my own, but I was distracted.” Lily squeezed her hand. “I feel like I’ve been distracted a lot lately.”

“Should I apologize?”

“Never,” Jamie said quickly, and Lily laughed again. Jamie felt her chest expand as the familiar hoard of butterflies fluttered about. She loved watching Lily laugh, she loved being the cause of her laughter. “Lily, I fancy you.”

Lily tugged on her hand until their shoulders were pressed together, Jamie’s free hand went to the small of Lily’s back. “Jamie, I know.” Jamie laughed quietly, pressing her lips to Lily’s shoulder. “I have managed to piece together enough clues in the last month or so.”

“I just like telling you.” Jamie muttered against her shoulder. “I like getting to say it out loud.”

Lily turned her head and kissed Jamie’s hairline, leaving her lips there for a moment before she pulled back. “I fancy you, Jamie.”

“I really like hearing you say it, too.” Jamie lifted her head and looked into Lily’s brilliant, green eyes. “Maybe more than I like saying it.”

Lily leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching and then bumped her nose against Jamie’s. “I fancy you.”

Jamie closed her eyes and hummed, the butterflies’ wings beat faster in her chest.

“Jamie, do you think you could polish all this for me?”

Jamie opened her eyes, blinking at the falsely coy look on Lily’s face. “Why? Do you have something else to do?” She was already reaching for her wand.

“I do have something else to do,” Lily nodded as Jamie pointed her wand at the polish and rag and sent them into their air to start their task. “I was hoping to kiss you.”

“Yeah?”

“If that’s alright with you, of course.”

“Yes,” Jamie shoved her wand back into her pocket and uncrossed her legs to throw one over Lily’s lap, pulling the girl impossibly closer. “Yes, yes, yes.”


End file.
